The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Woollybear enthusiasts emerge for ’21 festival
Caterpillar craze crawls back in town
Woollybear lovers returned en masse for the revival Oct. 10 of Vermilion Woollybear Festival.
The celebration of northern Ohio’s fuzzy winter weather predictor rebounded after a year off due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Cloudy skies in late morning seemed not to deter those who gathered to enjoy woollybear races and the Wonderful, Wacky Woollybear Parade along with live music, vendors and food.
There were costume contests for those who wear their woollybear enthusiasm on their sleeves. And pants and bodies and heads.
Fox 8 TV personality Lil’ John Rinaldi and Cliff German, owner of German’s Villa event center in Vermilion, served as masters of ceremonies. They noted the judges were scattered out in the crowd, so the final decision was not theirs.
Carlee Law, 3, of Vermilion, was crowned the 2021 Woollybear Queen. Michael Jessel Jr., 17 months, of Vermilion, was crowned the 2021 Woollybear King.
Sprinkle, a long-haired chihuahua from Oberlin, took the top prize for best animal or pet dressed like a woollybear, without actually being a caterpillar.
‘It had to be fuzzy’
Carlee and her brother, Aaron, 1, made their Woollybear Festival debuts on stage together with their mother, Sarah Law. Her mother, Patti Law — Mimi to the little ones — assembled the costumes.
Carlee’s costume had a trailing tail, making it longer than she was tall.
“It had to be fuzzy, we had to have some fun googly eyes and we had to have a train,” Patti Law said. “Every woollybear should have a train. And it had to be easy on, easy off.”
The family missed the festival in 2020 because each year they hold a party for the day. Sarah Law said her husband, Scott, a Vermilion native, was at home entertaining the guests.
“We do look forward to this every year,” Sarah Law said.
‘Super excited’
Michael Jessel Jr. was not yet born the last time the Woollybear Festival happened in 2019.
He is the son of Samantha and Michael Jessel Sr. They were inspired by finding a woollybear at the Wakeman home of his grandmother, Dede Jessel.
“She was like, you should enter him in the Woollybear contest,” Samantha Jessell said. “So I got super excited.”
They attended with Samantha Jessel’s parents, Monica and Jerry Kilby of North Ridgeville.
The plan was to buy premade pom-poms and fuzzballs for the costume, but Monica Kilby suggested making them. The family used five skeins of yarn on a project that kept Samantha Jessel up late the night before.
“You just keep wrapping and wrapping and wrapping and then you just make your pom-poms out of them. A lot of work,” she said. “But I’m doing good, I’m not that tired.”
The prize was fun for the family, especially because Michael Jr. is the first child for his mother and father, Samantha Jessel said.
“I was really excited. I was like, oh my gosh,” she said. “I would say definitely prep ahead. Don’t do lastminute. I’m a last-minute person, but I was excited so I did it, I had to just finish it.”
Made with love
Sprinkle, 1, made her Woollybear debut with dog-mom Wendy Bissett and dog-dad Larry Solak, a wife-husband team from Oberlin.
Sprinkle had her own costume and rode inside a covered wagon tricked out with fur, leaves and fuzzy woollybears to be a rolling cocoon.
A rescue from Vermilion, Solak found Sprinkle as a Valentine’s Day gift and she joined the family in March. The couple has another rescue dog, a curly coated retriever named Grace.
They also have a festival pedigree: Their late chihuahua Tootsie won the pet and animal costume contest at ages 1, 5 and 10. In the past they got to ride in the parade on a float with the late Dick Goddard, the Fox 8 meteorologist, staunch animal lover and longtime Woollybear Festival promoter.
They would ride in the parade on Oct. 10 and offered their advice on crafting a woollybear lookalike.
“Be creative and spend a lot of time,” Solak said.
“Creative, time, make it fit the animal,” Bissett said. “Of course, she’s petite and small, that’s why I went with, not so much gaudy, but a little bit more petite.
“And love,” she added.
The forecast
WJW Fox 8 meteorologist Scott Sabol and the station’s weather team provided this year’s winter forecast based on the black and brown coloration of this year’s woollybears. It stated:
“We’ve had a super wet and humid summer and a warm and dry fall. It’s been five years since we’ve had above normal snowfall across northern Ohio.We’ve dodged a bunch of snow bullets over the last few winters. Will our luck continue with an unprecedented sixth straight winter with below normal snowfall or will it run out? Our prognosticating caterpillar has spoken.
“November will start out pretty quiet. We’ll have some warm days but don’t be fooled. Look for winter to start off relatively strong with plenty of snow in late November and December.
“After the first of the year winter will be more on and off with plenty of nice breaks.”